Fans race to learn Spanish before Bad Bunny's Super Bowl halftime show

Bad Bunny is expected to perform the Super Bowl halftime show on Sunday entirely in Spanish — which has inspired fans to quickly learn the language.

In October, the Puerto Rican singer — born Benito Antonio Martínez Ocasio — kicked off the 51st season of “Saturday Night Live” expressing pride over the achievement in Spanish, after which he said in English, “If you didn’t understand what I just said, you have four months to learn!”

That declaration further stoked the anger of some conservatives who have vilified Bad Bunny for speaking out against President Donald Trump's anti-immigrant policies. The singer canceled the U.S. portion of his tour last year out of fear that Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents would target his fans.

There's been a frenzy online of people posting about Bad Bunny lyrics, including Puerto Ricans explaining slang used by the singer and non-Spanish speakers documenting their journey to learn Spanish.

Anticipation for his halftime performance has only intensified since last weekend, when his album, “ Debí Tirar Más Fotos,” became the first Spanish-language album to win the Grammy for album of the year. He did not shy away from addressing targeted federal immigration operations at the awards.

“Before I say thanks to God, I’m going to say ICE out,” he said in English after winning his first Grammy for música urbana album. “We’re not savage, we’re not animals, we’re not aliens. We are humans and we are Americans.”

Niklaus Miller, 29, has been buckling down on learning Bad Bunny lyrics since the singer's SNL appearance months ago.

“I am delusional enough to be like ‘this would be easy. I could pick it up pretty quickly,'” Miller said.

The fervor to learn a new language within a short time span highlights the powerful impact of Latino culture in the U.S. despite the president's anti-immigrant rhetoric and actions.

“It felt like a form of protest,” Miller said. “What can I do right now besides what everyone is doing that is trying to help? It just feels good.”

Miller said he has gotten messages from people who watch his videos with their parents since he started posting about the process of learning Spanish. They say they feel seen and appreciated.

While Miller hasn’t learned Bad Bunny’s entire discography, he has learned portions of six songs that he feels will be part of the halftime show, including “Tití Me Preguntó,” “DtMF" and “Baile Inolvidable.”

The day after Bad Bunny was announced as the halftime act, O’Neil Thomas, 28, a New York City actor and content creator, started learning the singer’s catalog.

“I was just so excited because he wasn’t an artist that I expected,” Thomas said. “And given how we are right now with the state of the country I think he is the perfect person to headline such a humongous stage.”

The response to his TikTok videos — showing Thomas learning “NUEVAYoL” and other tracks — have been really positive, Thomas added. Many Puerto Rican people have reached out, saying they're proud that someone outside the community is attempting to learn about their culture.

“People were already starting to make the effort with learning Spanish as a result of their interest in Latin music,” said Vanessa Díaz, associate professor of Chicano and Latino studies at Loyola Marymount University. “The Super Bowl itself is an additional push for a trend that was already happening.”

Díaz, who is the co-author of “P FKN R: How Bad Bunny Became the Global Voice of Puerto Rican Resistance,” says the rise of Latin music over the past decade has pushed non-Spanish speakers to learn the language. Bad Bunny’s clear messaging in his lyrics, videos and performances amplifies that interest, Díaz said.

Spanish is the most spoken language at home behind English in the U.S. — except in three states, according to U.S. Census data. Over 13% of residents age 5 and older speak it.

For Thomas, Bad Bunny's music offered the perfect opportunity to take on the challenge of learning a new language.

"I love Spanish and I always wanted to learn it,” Thomas said. “So, this has been a fun introduction for me to finally hone in."

Both Miller and Thomas said that learning Spanish, specifically Puerto Rican Spanish, in a short period of time has been a unique challenge.

Thomas said listening to Bad Bunny's music casually is a different experience than learning the lyrics.

“Listening to his music is really fun,” Thomas said. "The amount of times I’ve pressed rewind just to get a phrase, I can’t even count.”

Miller said the hard part about learning the songs is that the Puerto Rican dialect tends to chop some words and it is very fast. Miller said if he hasn’t worked on understanding a song for days, he might forget the pronunciation and it's hard to come back to it.

“It’s fun but then stressful because I am a Type-A person, so that’s been hard, honestly,” Miller said. “I’m firing on all cylinders."

Bad Bunny’s booking at the Super Bowl has been divisive from the start. Trump called the selection “ridiculous.” Conservatives have called it anti-American — even though native-born Puerto Ricans are also U.S. citizens. Turning Point USA is putting on an alternative “All-American Halftime Show" with a lineup led by Kid Rock.

This all comes against the backdrop of Latinos and Spanish-speaking communities being targeted in Trump’s immigration crackdowns. His executive actions have vastly expanded who is eligible for deportation and routine hearings have turned into deportation traps for migrants.

For Bad Bunny, the halftime show is the ultimate stage to showcase his music, heritage and global influence. For the NFL and Apple Music, it’s a balancing act: deliver a spectacle that celebrates diversity without igniting controversy that scares off advertisers.

NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell has stood by the choice, citing Bad Bunny’s immense popularity.

Petra Rivera-Rideau, associate professor of American studies at Wellesley College and co-author of “P FKN R,” said there's a long history in the U.S. of Spanish being criminalized.

Bad Bunny is making it cool to know the language and changing the narrative around it, Diaz said. Now Spanish is something that people are aspiring to learn.

Díaz doesn't think his performance will necessarily shift how Latinos are perceived in the U.S. but she says it will create an interesting conversation depending on “how people are going to grapple with the magnitude of having someone like Bad Bunny on the stage."

At a time when “the U.S. is targeting Latinos and migrants and Spanish speakers or even those who are just perceived to be any of those things in a way that we haven't seen in our lifetimes,” his visibility is powerful, Diaz said.

FILE - Bad Bunny performs during his first show of his 30-date concert residency at the Coliseo de Puerto Rico José Miguel Agrelot, in San Juan, Puerto Rico, July 11, 2025. (AP Photo/Alejandro Granadillo, File)

Niklaus Miller sits at his computer as he learns Bad Bunny's songs in preparation for Bad Bunny's Super Bowl halftime show at his home in the Hollywood section of Los Angeles Friday, Jan. 16, 2026. (AP Photo/Damain Dovarganes)

Niklaus Miller sits at his computer as he learns Bad Bunny's songs in preparation for Bad Bunny's Super Bowl halftime show at his home in the Hollywood section of Los Angeles Friday, Jan. 16, 2026. (AP Photo/Damain Dovarganes)

Niklaus Miller sits at his computer as he learns Bad Bunny's songs in preparation for Bad Bunny's Super Bowl halftime show at his home in the Hollywood section of Los Angeles Friday, Jan. 16, 2026. (AP Photo/Damain Dovarganes)

FILE - Puerto Rico artist Bad Bunny performs during his "DeBÍ TiRAR MáS FOToS" tour in Mexico City on Dec. 10, 2025. (AP Photo/Eduardo Verdugo)

LONDON (AP) — The U.K. government agreed Wednesday to release documents casting light on the decision to appoint Peter Mandelson as ambassador to the United States, despite his friendship with Jeffrey Epstein, as it tries to stem mounting anger over the revelations.

Prime Minister Keir Starmer faced the wrath of opposition lawmakers, and his own Labour Party backbenchers, after acknowledging that he had known at the time of the 2024 appointment about Mandelson's friendship with the convicted sex offender.

Starmer said that he was unaware of the depth of the relationship, and that Mandelson had “lied repeatedly” about his ties to Epstein.

A trove of documents about Epstein released last week by the U.S. Justice Department has finished off Mandelson’s long political career — and left Starmer facing angry questions about his judgment in making him Britain's envoy to the Trump administration, the country's most important ambassadorial post.

Starmer fired Mandelson, 72, in September after emails were published showing that he maintained a friendship with Epstein following the late financier’s 2008 conviction for sex offenses involving a minor. Epstein died by suicide in a jail cell in 2019, while awaiting trial on U.S. federal charges accusing him of sexually abusing dozens of girls.

At a question-and-answer session in the House of Commons dominated by the Epstein revelations, Starmer said that Mandelson had “lied repeatedly to my team when asked about his relationship with Epstein before and during his tenure as ambassador.”

“Mandelson betrayed our country, our Parliament and my party,” Starmer said. “I regret appointing him. If I knew then what I know now, he would never have been anywhere near government.”

The opposition Conservative Party said that explanation wasn't good enough, and moved to force a vote in Parliament calling for the release of emails and other documentation related to Mandelson's appointment.

Starmer said that he would ensure that "all of the material" is published, except for documents that compromise Britain's national security, international relations or the police investigation into Mandelson's activities.

Opposition lawmakers — and some from Starmer's Labour Party — said that they worried the government would use national security as an excuse to keep embarrassing documents secret.

Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch said the government should publish all relevant files, “not just the ones the prime minister wants us to see.”

“The prime minister is talking about national security. The national security issue was appointing Mandelson in the first place,” she said.

The government gave in to lawmakers’ anger and agreed that the Intelligence and Security Committee — made up of parliamentarians from several parties — would decide what papers should be published, rather than a senior civil servant as Starmer had proposed.

Documents released last week by the U.S. government suggest Mandelson may have shared sensitive information with Epstein when he was a government minister around 15 years ago.

In 2009, he appears to have told Epstein that he would lobby other members of the government to reduce a tax on bankers’ bonuses, and passed on an internal government report discussing a potential sale of U.K. government assets. The following year, he appears to have tipped off Epstein about the imminent bailout of the euro currency.

The newly released files also suggest that in 2003-2004, Epstein sent three payments totaling $75,000 to accounts linked to Mandelson or his partner Reinaldo Avila da Silva, now his husband.

Since those disclosures, Mandelson has resigned from the House of Lords and faces a police investigation for alleged misconduct in public office, which carries a maximum sentence of life in prison. Opening an investigation doesn't mean Mandelson will be arrested, charged or convicted.

London's Metropolitan Police said that it had “immediately” reviewed documents sent to it by Starmer's office and warned that the release of some of them could undermine its investigation.

“We therefore asked them not to release certain documents at this time,” Cmdr. Ella Marriott said.

Starmer said that the government was working on legislation to remove the noble title, Lord Mandelson, that the ex-ambassador still holds. He will also be removed from the Privy Council, a committee of senior officials that advises King Charles III, for bringing “the reputation of the Privy Council into disrepute,” Starmer said.

An email requesting comment on the documents was sent to Mandelson through the House of Lords.

The European Union is also investigating potential wrongdoing by Mandelson when he was the bloc's trade commissioner between 2004 and 2008. The U.K. was an EU member until 2020.

“We will be assessing if, in light of these newly available documents, there might be a breaches of the respective rules with regard to Peter Mandelson,” European Commission spokesperson Balazs Ujvari said. “We have rules in place, emanating from the treaty and the code of conduct that commissioners, including former commissioners, have to follow.”

Sam McNeil contributed to this report from Brussels.

A previous version of this story was corrected to show that the EU is investigating Mandelson, not Epstein.

Britain's Prime Minister Keir Starmer departs 10 Downing Street to go to the House of Commons for his weekly Prime Minister's Questions in London, Wednesday, Feb. 4, 2026. (AP Photo/Alastair Grant)

Britain's Prime Minster Keir Starmer departs 10 Downing Street to go to the House of Commons for his weekly Prime Minister's Questions in London, Wednesday, Feb. 4, 2026. (AP Photo/Alastair Grant)

FILE - Britain's Ambassador to the United States, Peter Mandelson, speaks during a reception at the ambassador's residence on Feb. 26, 2025 in Washington. (Carl Court/Pool Photo via AP, File)